That’s the premise of a New York Times Magazine article that examines a species of jellyfish (appropriately) nicknamed the “immortal jellyfish.”
Known officially as Turritopsis nutricula (and sometimes as Turritopsis dohrnii), the minute creature has the ability to transform its cells back into a youthful state. As National Geographic puts it, the jellyfish transforms “into a blob-like cyst” that grows into a polyp colony — the first stage of life.
From there, the jellyfish continues a conventional lifecycle, maturing and mating. Instead of dying, however, the immortal jelly reverts, time and again, back into the polyp colony. That ability “allows the jellyfish to bypass death, rendering [it] biologically immortal,” notes Hongbao Ma, a researcher at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
According to a study published in “Nature and Science,”the jellyfish accomplishes this unique feat via “transdifferentiation.” Essentially, the creature absorbs its cells, then transforms them into cells of any other type.
Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?
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